‘It snuck up on us’: A ‘city-killer’ asteroid just missed Earth and scientists almost didn’t detect it in time

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I went over to Crazy Henry's place to commiserate with him. his pet monkey had been run over by a beer truck. I found him contemplating a loose pile of rocks and trash on the asphalt in front of his apartment. he was eating Hostess Donettes from the bag. "is that the monkey's grave?" I asked him. "no" he replied. "I buried him next to my mother out in Saint Anthony Cemetery." "well then why are you looking at this mess of trash?" I asked him. "I am going to create a meteor out of it." we both looked at the pile for a while. I didn't feel like ragging him about it, since he had just lost something that had been part of him, in fact defined him, for many years past. I thought I was being respectful, but really I was just tired of his foolishness and knew if I kept on prodding he'd get me involved in his pointless activities. but Crazy Henry was never intimidated by silence. he just kept on talking as if I'd asked him to explain it all.

"See, I'm gonna meld all this stuff together with super glue, then shoot it out of a huge cannon, like Jules Verne wrote about, and when it falls back to earth it'll become a meteor. I'll charge scientists who want to come study it a huge fee so they'll have to get grant money for it. I'll clean up!" he was smiling, nearly chuckling, and his mood was infectious. 

"You'll need Big Bertha" I told him.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Biggest cannon in the world; they used it in World War One" I told him.

"Can I get it online?" he asked eagerly.

"Why not?" I said expansively. But then I turned around and went back home; I felt Crazy Henry was making me his new pet monkey.

Democrats struggle to figure out next move against Trump after Mueller hearing falls flat

I couldn't figure out my next move, as I sat on the edge of a pool of quicksand. the muddy quicksand felt cool and refreshing on my bare feet as I wiggled my toes in it. I remembered reading somewhere that quicksand is full of mineral nutrients that soften skin and retard odor causing bacteria. then there was the sign on the other side of the pool that read GUARANTEED SAFE BY GOOD HOUSEKEEPING. 
but both my parents had perished in a quicksand pit on the upper Orinoco River when I was a child. they were ornithologists, looking for rare birds.  and I knew from my studies at Florida State University that alligators often inhabited quicksand pools. 
so I was in a quandary. should I go in or should I stay out? I had taken a great deal of trouble getting to this spot; spent a lot of money and slugged it out with competitors who also wanted to sit where I was now sitting. I decided to just keep sitting there, waiting for a sign. diamonds falling from the sky. flowers floating through the air. men with ears on their feet. that kind of thing. 
that was a long time ago; I'm still waiting.  

The poetry, prose and physics of baseball

the baseball maker of Storm Lake works in a shabby shop on Erie Street. he only makes one baseball each year. the baseball that the president of the United States throws out on opening day. after the president throws the ball out onto the field, the umpire takes care of it until he can reach Cooperstown, where he places it in the museum in a tin box with IN GOD WE TRUST stamped onto the lid. those baseballs will save the country one day when rottenness has eaten away at our faith in home runs and apple pie.
the baseball maker of Storm Lake is very humble and quiet. most people in town have no idea what he does, or how he does it. he mows his lawn and takes his trash to the curb in such an unassuming manner that no one really suspects that he can infuse a leather covered horsehair ball with magic. he never brags about it. he likes to watch the Golf Channel. he never married, so he is troubled about how to pass on his trade and craft secrets. he has a nephew, his sister's son -- but the boy wants to play soccer, not slowly stitch together the world. it looks like when the baseball maker of Storm Lake passes on, he will be supplanted by the softball maker of Oshkosh. 

In ‘The Lager Queen of Minnesota,’ two long-estranged sisters are brought together by beer

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Professor Barbara teaches creative writing at the university. at least when she remembers to show up she does. I took her class years ago, before I was married, and half the time she forgot she had class because she was very involved in a DR Congo educational grant proposal that would put schools all over the country that she would be in charge of. she still is involved with Congo projects. come to think of it, she probably should retire from the university. I've been retired for years now. but she really doesn't seem to age. her red hair is just getting brighter, not fading at all. her skin is as smooth as vellum.

I wrote a novel while taking her class, but I lost the manuscript years ago. I think the title was How to Play Pinochle at the Pine Tavern. this was back in typewriter days. and after I finished typing it up I realized I hadn't paginated it -- there were no page numbers. so I numbered each page by hand, in blue ink. I submitted it to Professor Barbara as my Final, and got a B for my trouble. but she went to the Congo before I got my manuscript back and by the time she came back I had moved to Thailand. 

it might have become a bestseller. I might have never been on food stamps. and why does Professor Barbara not age? 

I saw her at the rec center just last week and she is ripe, not old. I am afraid to ask her about the past. she might shatter. 

Border Patrol chief was a member of racist Facebook group — and says she didn’t notice

I didn't notice the crack until it was too big to patch. I was busy with muscular activities that took all my time. I had assistants who were supposed to look out for just such things; they let me down. big time. plus my schedule is such that I only allow myself 17 minutes of sleep each night, and only five minutes to drink smoothies five times a day. otherwise I am completely caught up in my duties, to such an extent that I haven't seen my spouse and children in over ten years -- I'm not even sure where they are anymore.
but it's all good, really. I'm serving my country by keeping it safe from bindlestiffs and noodgers. not to mention half-hearted foozlers. still, I'm sorry for the crack. I take full responsibility for it, and will make it right. soon, very soon. I plan on taking action to alert all other regions of this crack and to alert the president to the fact that a crack has developed and at this point cannot be patched or mended. then leave it up to him to decide how to handle the situation on a national basis. locally, I'm having my crew round up all the usual crevices in the area for routine questioning and possible relocation to a nook and cranny reeducation camp. 

Mueller’s Labored Performance Was a Departure From His Once-Fabled Stamina (NYT)

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the ennui anarchists have struck again. this time right in our nation's capital! they snuck up on congress and infiltrated a witness so boring and meandering that the entire body was in danger of falling into a coma.  only the vigilance of the pages kept the congressmen and women from keeling over in a dead faint, possibly cracking their heads open on those hard oak lecterns of theirs. 
after the legislators were taken to stimulating safety, where they could play video games and eat wasabi sushi rolls, the ennui squad moved in for the kill. first they hosed him down with glycerin, then covered him with baking soda. but he still kept droning on, dropping his notes on the floor and fumbling with the microphone. so the squad had to get tough. they shut off the electricity, hoping the lack of air conditioning would get to the ennui anarchist. but he just took off all his clothes and began using pie charts. at this point the President ordered a nuclear strike, telling reporters he had no other choice.
the radiation is expected to dissipate in twenty years or so -- until then congress will be meeting at the Walmart on lexington and vine.

California deli owner offered a free side dish to customers who said ‘send her back’

(dedicated to Tim Carman)


the recipe for venom soup is as follows:

take one foreign scapegoat. make sure it is young, tender, and idealistic.

flay it on social media until softened to the consistency of puerility.

marinate it in self righteous bile and xenophobia. salt and pepper to taste.

meanwhile mix bitter herbs with plenty of vinegar, sour grapes, and spilt milk. set aside long enough to post a decent amount of balderdash on Facebook.

combine all ingredients and let it stew in your mind. after several hours add some cracked brains and serve immediately, garnished with ignorance. 

A glacier is dead. A monument will tell visitors whose fault it was. (WaPo)

(Dedicated to Morgan Krakow)

my friend Crazy Henry got 2 tickets from Icelandic Airlines for a round trip to Reykjavik and back. I don't know how he got them; he's always getting stuff for free. one time he got a live turkey in December and kept it in his garage because he couldn't stand the thought of killing it. it finally escaped through a broken window and terrorized the neighborhood for months with its strange threatening mating cry. 
in Reykjavik we found an economy hotel with free cereal and milk in the morning. I asked the clerk how to get to the nearest glacier.
"they're all gone" he said, in perfect English. "what do you mean they're all gone?" I asked. "the last one melted away last spring" he said, snowflakes trickling down his cheeks. when I told this to Crazy Henry he said no use crying over spilt glaciers let's go see some volcanoes. but the same clerk told me there were no more volcanoes, either. they had all moved south to Italy. he was a total wet blanket, was that clerk.
so we toured a lichen farm and watched the sardine migration from a lighthouse. now that we're back home Crazy Henry is trying to grow a glacier in his backyard. "it only takes one ice cube a day and infinite patience" he says. while we were gone he lost his job at the Creamette factory. He didn't bother to tell them he would be gone for two weeks. 

Campers stay overnight to snag a spot for Salt Lake's Days of '47 Parade (Deseret News)

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I passed a man sitting in a lawn chair on the street this morning. I myself was feeling fine, so I stopped to ask him what he was doing, instead of hurrying on and muttering about all the crazy people in the world.

"I'm waiting for a parade" he said.

"what parade?" I asked.

"oh, any parade that might happen by." he said.

"you expecting one soon?" I asked.

"there's no telling when a parade might come lolloping past here, so I want to be prepared." he replied brightly, nothing daunted by my mounting skepticism. 

I decided he needed some grounding, so I told him that you can't have a parade down a busy street without a permit and that, what with social media nowadays, there would be notices of an upcoming parade all over the place. in other words, he was wasting his time just sitting there. It was warm out, so I started to perspire as I tried to convince him of his immense folly. he just smiled back at me and said "looking for a parade is better than missing one." I went home for a lawn chair and now we are both on the lookout for a parade. 

Trump and Johnson: Allies in Disruption

I'm losing my grip on the English language. maybe my interest, too; since it no longer is used the way I like it.
what's the deal with disrupt and disruption? when I caused a disruption in class I was sent to the principal's office. you never wanted to be called a disruptive influence at work -- you could lose your job. communists are disruptive, not patriotic Americans. but now it's apparently a good thing to be disruptive. disruptive marketing and disruptive startups and disruptive planets breaking us out of orbit. my son does stuff with social media, which makes him enough money to buy a big house freshly painted and with clipped hedges -- he asked me to write 500 words on disruptive advertising for one of his innumerable blogs. "what's that?" I asked him. "it's anti-advertising; going against the perceived wisdom and experience of marketing to establish a whole new level of consumer consciousness" he said. I turned him down. I told him there's no positive in disruption. not in this world. and I would stick to my guns and deplore disruption in high places and low, until the forces of disruption come to get me.